
E 




.5 



.GM 



/ REMARKS 



OP 



MESSRS. GROW, QUITMAN, AND T. L. HARRIS, 



ON THE 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE, 



AND THE 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE. 










DELIVERED JANUARY 18 AND 19, 1S5S> 







WASHINGTON: 

PRiljtTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE, 
1856. 



E434 






%% 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE, ETC. 



Friday, January 19, 1856. 

Mr. GROW said: Mr. Clerk, I haye refrained 
from participation in the debates of this Hall until 
an organization of the House should be effected, 
and I do not now propose to say anything in refer- 
ence to the legitimate legislation of the country 
until the attainment of that result. But as to the 
responsibility for the organization of this House 
which has been raised here this morning, I pro- 
pose to say a few words. The responsibility 
should rest on those who have produced the 
state of things we find in this Hall and the coun- 
try. It is not a question of figures or votes, 
whether this or that man could have been elected 
by transferring votes from this or the other can- 
didate. 

What has produced the present state of things? 
Why cannot this House organize? At the open- 
ing of the last Congress, peace reigned in every 
quarter of the country, and men came here from 
cvi rv section with fraternal feelings. There were 
urbing elements to jar the .universal har- 
mony of sentiment. "The dead past had buried 
its dead." The bitter controversies of previous 
years had ceased, and sectional quarrels were for 
the time forgotten. No note of discord was heard 
in the councils of the nation, and the future was 
unclouded and bright; yet, in violation of good 
faith, mutually pledged by the representatives of 
the two deal parties of the country; "to 

resist the further agitation of the slavery ques- 
tion in Congress or out of it," a time-honored 
en the two sections of the Union 
was trampled under foot, thu ■-. under 

the sanction of the Governni territory 

to the introduction of slavery, from which our 
fathers agreed thai it should be forever excluded. 
Upon the men, and the influence that si cured its 
abrogation, rests the responsibility for our want 
of organization at this time. 

It was di clared he're, as a ri asbn for the repeal 
of that compromise, that it was necessary to take 
the question out of Congress. The efforl to take 
it out has been a civil war in Kansas, and a sec- 
tional strife unparalleled in the history of the 



country. Such is the result thus far of the at- 
tempt to take the question out of Congress; and 
tie' restriction in Minnesota and Oregon si ill re- 
mains a bone of contention for a future day. 
When the repeal of the Missouri compromise 
was ur^ed on the ground that it would q>; 
tation, and take this question out of Congress, I 
declared on this floor that — 

"Those who make this declaration with so much appa- 
rent sincerity either do nnt understand the real sentiment 
of the North, or they tV.il to comprehend aright the springs 
of human action. Hir. you are caking open and fanning 
into a flame coals which were already smothered, an I. .f 
left alone, would have buried themselves forever in their 
own cinders. 

•■ As an early and constant friend of this Administration. 
I desire the defeat of this bill ; for its passage will, in my 
judgment, insure, Beyond a doubt, an anti-Administration 
majority in the next Congress, As an earnest and devoted 
friend of the Democratic party to which I have Cheerfully 
given my best energies from my earliest ,'»>Ii!;<\l! an ion. I 
<! a.' the defeat of this bill ; for its passage will blot it out 
as a national organization, and leaving but a wreck in every 
northern Stat.', it will live only in history. A- ,. lover Of 
peace, harmony, and fraternal concord BJBOng the citizens 
of the Confed iracy, ami as a devotee at the shrine of this 
Union, with all its precious hopes to man. I desire the de- 
feat of this bin ; for it- passage will tear open wounds not 
yet healed, lacerate spirits already phrensied, ami • I 

of confidence ' which unites tic two sections of the Union, 
will hi- rent asunder, and year:; of alienation and unkind- 
ness may intervene beTore it can be restored; if ever, to its 
wont A tenacity and strength." 

Sir, history has made those remarks prophetic; 
though it was but the natural result of that legis- 
lation. The r isponsibility for want of an i 
ization of this I bees, is upon those who reopened 
this agitation. Yon trampled down a fair arrange- 
ment between the two sections of this Union: you 
trampled on your own plighted faith, given in 
the conventions assembled at Baltimore in 1852. 
v, t scarcely is year had elapsed before th 
tiop,was reopened in Congress. Wounds were 
torn open that had just healed; and to-day we 

selves in the midst of this quasi i 
t ; on. On the brads, then, of those who trampled 
down these compacts of good faith be the respons- 
ibility. 

Sir, by the records of votes here you can prove 
that almost anybody is responsible for this want 



of organization. Did not the gentleman from II "What is it but a recognition of the principles 
Alabama, [Mr. "Walker,] the first weeks of the Ij which underlie the Constitution of the United 
session, propose to the Democracy that the two i States?— the right of all the States in their Fed- 



parties unite, and elect a (what is called) national 
man Speaker; and are not the seventy-four men 
who vote for Mr. Richardson responsible be- 
cause they did not take that proposition? By 
the same line of argument pursued by my friend 
from Alabama, [Mr. Houston,] they certainly 
are. But I do not hold them to any responsi- 
bility on such grounds. Gentlemen stand here 
by their principles. It is said that the gentleman 
from Ohio [Mr. Campbell] could have been 
elected, if all the anti-Nebraska men had voted 
for him. For three days Mr. Banks was within 
three of an election. If three of those who voted 
for others had voted for him, he would now have 
been the Speaker. You can transfer the respons- 
ibility on whom you please by taking the. votes 
as they are on the record, because combinations 
could have been made at any time by which an 
election could have been effected. That result 
could be figured out of the vote of anti-Nebraska 
men; and the same could be done in the vote of 
Democrats and Americans. It is not expected 
that those voting for Mr. Richardson will change 
their position, because by doing so they may gain 
a few votes. Nor should it be expected that those 
voting for Mr. Banks will change their ground, 
because by so doing they may secure a few more 
votes. Those of us who were here at the time 
resisted the repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
and were opposed to reopening the slavery agita- 
tion. We were borne down then, but our views 
of the justice of that measure have not changed. 
What was wrong when enacted never ceases with 
me to be a wrong. 



Saturday, January 19, 185G. 
Mr. QUITMAN. I intended yesterday to take 
the floor for the purpose of making a few remarks 
in reply to those which fell from the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Grow,] who last spoke 
upon the subject of the responsibility of the several 
parties* for the failure of this House to organize; 
but I refrained from doing so in the hope that some 
other gentleman would have done it. But, there 
were some expressions that fell from the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania, in the few eloquent remarks 
that he made to the House, which 1 think it my 
duty to animadvert upon. He traces the cause 
of the failure of this. House to effect an organiza- 
tion, not to what has occurred during the present 
session, but he goes back to the passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill as the cause of the hostile 



eral capacity, and the rights of the citizens of 
the respective States to an equal participation in 
a country which was acquired by their common 
blood and treasure — not less by that of the 
people of the South than that of the people of the 
North. 

But gentlemen are mistaken. They do not 
travel back to the sources of that angry feeling 
which exists between the different sections of the 
Union, when they stop at the passage of the Ne- 
braska bill by the last Congress. That was not 
the cause of that hostility of feeling which now 
prevents the organization of this House. That 
was not the original cause why, at the present 
time, we find the two sections of the country 
arrayed against one another. I will tell gentlemen 
what the "cause is. The cause has operated for 
more than a year. It made its appearance on 
this floor in 1819, and was only quieted for a 
time by the compromise of 1821). It broke out 
afresh in 1835. It is to be found in that spirit 
of aggression upon the institutions of the South 
which comes from a portion of that section of 
the country which the gentleman [Mr. Grow] 
represents. The South has ever stood by the 
guarantees of the Constitution; she has adhered 
faithfully to the system of government under 
which we live. She has never undertaken to 
make any encroachment upon any State rights, 
or upon any individual rights of the citizens of 
the North. Not so with the North. Upon the 
application of Missouri for admission into the 
Union in 1819, she evinced her disposition to 
exercise her political powers to prevent the in- 
crease of slaveholding States, and to deprive the 
South of her just rights to a participation in all 
the benefits of the Union. The political strife 
which grew out of that controversy threatened 
the dissolution of the Union. It resulted in a 
compromise unjust to the South, but which she 
was compelled to accept. The result of that 
struggle, thus terminated, quelled agitation for a 
time. It soon rose again with fearful violence, 
and has been continued ever since. 

But the gentleman traces back the cause of this 
sectional hostility one year only. Let me tell 
him that, twenty years ago, when I had the honor 
to send in an executive message to the Legislature 
of Mississippi, I deemed it proper to call the 
attention of the Legislature of that State to the 
aggressive movements in the northern States. 
Could I have procured that document, I would 
have read extracts from it to show the truth of 

corn- 



fueling between the different sections of the Union 

which to-day produces the disorganization of this my remarks. The South has ever si 

House. | plained of this intermeddling of the North with 

The gentleman does not go far enough back. |; her institutions. Yet it has continued without 

Is it, sir, the passage of that bill which has given jl intermission; it is the agitation which that gen- 



to all portions of this country their equal rights 
in this Confederacy — is it the passage of that 
bill which has produced this state of feeling be- 
tween the different sect inns of the country? If 
it is, then the gentlemen who concur with him 
have taken the bold position that they will deny 
to a large portion of this country their common, 



tleman, and those who cooperate with him, has 
raised that has produced this feeling between tho 
different sections of this country, and not the 
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill; that was 
the result, not the cause. It is not because the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill has taken away a single 
rio-lit from the North, but it is because it has 



he po- I performed a constitutional duty to the South: be- 
inority I cause it has given to the South the same rights 



equal, constitutional rights. If this is the 

sition gentlemen occupy, we from the minority 

section of the Union would be glad to know which we acknowledge are possessed by the peo- 

it. But, sir, what is the Kansas-Nebraska bill ? II pie of the North. Let the gentleman, then, when 



bo attempts to trace causes, go back to tbc sources 
of tbis state of feeling, and bo will find that it is 
upon you, northern men, the responsibility of 
this state of tilings lirs — upon you, who have 
stirred up this sectional agitation, you who seek 
to deprive sovereign States of their federal and 
constitutional rights. When you attempt, then, 
to trace it back, go to its true sourer. In the future 
of our country, if it should happen that the glori- 
ous system which pur fathers nave transmitted to 
us should fall and tumble into ruin, the verdict 
of posterity and history will he to condemn the 
agitators of the slavery question as traitors to 
the Constitution and to t li.- equal constitutional 
rights of a portion of this Union. There, sir, I 
trace it, and there posterity will trace it, and will 
not impute it to the action of the last Congress in 
doing what was nothing but mere justice to the 
South. 

Gentlemen tell us here, graciously, that tl»ey 
are not disposed to invade our rights of property 
within the States. I do not thank them for that. 
Let me tell them here on this floor — though my- 
self born north of Mason and Dixon's line — that 
that is not all we desire. No, sir; we desire 
more. We desire the eommon benefits of this 
system of Government. We are not content that 
that gnat interest, whose existence in our section 
of the country has constituted so important an 
element of your prosperity as well as of ours — 
that system which God in bis infinite wisdom 
has permitted to be built up in our country to 
promote, foster, and carry forward its great des- 
tiny — should meet a mere tolerance at your hands 
in the States in which it exists. No, sir; we 
would be craven, we would be traitors to our 
constitutional rights, if we did not ask of you 
what we have a right to demand — the benefits 
of the great system of government which your 
fathers and our fathers established. We demand 
it. We demand its benefits as well for our prop- 
erty as for yours, within the legitimate sphere of 
its action. We will not be content, we ought 
not to be content, with anything less. We are 
willing to meet you here as independent and pa- 
triotic men, and stand as equals upon a level, face 
to face and eye to eye; but we do not intend that 
you shall be our superiors — that you shall reap 
all the advantages of our common Government. 
We wan tits benefits also, and we insist upon them. 
You deprive us of most of our constitutional 
rights when you refuse to us all and every of the 
blessings which those institutions were intended 
to secure to all the citizens of every State. Do 
not be mistaken; let not gentlemen deceive them- 
selves with the idea that we are asking from their 
bounty mere tolerance of our institutions in the 
States. We demand all our constitutional rights — 
1 say, we demand them. [Here the hammer fell.] 

Mr. GROW. The gentleman from Mississippi 
[Mr. Quitman] complains of remarks made by 
me yesterday, and refers the agitation which 
exists in the country at the present moment back 
to the year 1835, instead of to the repeal of the 
Missouri compromise. In 1819, gentlemen say. 
Very well. Sir, whether the Missouri compro- 
mise wns constitutional or nut — whether or not it 
was a violation of your constitutional rights under 
this Government — your fathers agreed with our 
fathers, on the 6th of March, 18:20, that they 



would give up that constitutional right — if they 

had it — and that slavery should be forever after 

excluded from the territory north of the line .'Hi 

.')()'. Of the one hundred and three gentlemen who 

then represented the South in this House and in 

the Senate, but forty-six voted against this line. 

Among the number who sustained it was your 

own immortal Clay. He declared in the Senate 

of the United States, in 1850, "that a majority of 

southern members sustained that wrong — himself 

among the number." Whether its passage was 

' or was not a violation of a constitutional Eight, it 

! was "a fair bargain," and good faith (required 

that it should be observed. By it you consented 

I voluntarily to relinquish all right to carry slavery 

north of the line of .'30° 30'; and after availing 

yourselves of all the advantages secured by that 

arrangement to you, after converting every foot 

H of territory south of that line into slave territory, 

jl you came here, and by force of numbers struck 

j down that bargain which your fathers made, and 

i which was religiously observed for over a third 

I of a century. 

Mr. QUITMAN. Do you assort that Mr. 
Clay voted for the Missouri compromise line? 
Mr. GROW. I do assert that Mr. Clay says 
j he voted for the line of 36° 30'. 

Mr. HARRIS, of Illinois. He never did say 
J so. 

Mr. GROW. And that a majority of southern 
j members in the House and in the Senate voted 
■ for it. 

I Mr. BOWIE. Mr. Clay has stated that he did 
| not vote for that line; be was not present, but he 
thought that if he had been he would very likely 
have done so. 

Mr. GROW. I refer to a speech made by Mr. 
Clay in the Senate of the United States on the 
6th of March, 1850, in which he says, that 
" among those who agreed to that linewere a majority 
of southern members," and that " I hare no earthly 
doubt that I voted in common with my other southern 
friends fur the adoption of the line of 36° 30'." That 
is the language of Mr. Clay, in 1850, in the Senate 
of the United States. And. although he cannot 
speak to-day with living voice, he do< s speak 
through the records of his country; and I trust 
that no man will stand here to contradict his own 
declaration. 

Mr. HARRIS. Will the gentleman allow me 
to interrupt him? 
Mr. GROW. No, I cannot now. 
Mr HARRIS. The gentleman dares a contra- 
diction of the statement that Mi-. Clay voted for 
the line of 30° 30'. I wish to furnish a contra- 
diction. 

Mr. GROW. You may do so when I get 
through. 

Mr. HARRIS. You challenge a contradiction, 
and I wish to make it. 

Mr. GROW. No, sir, I only refer to the record. 
One word now in reply to the charge of northern 
aggressions upon the South, made by the gentle- 
man from Mississippi, ] Mr. Quitman,] for whom 
I entertain the kindest feelings; and the remarks 
I may make I trust will not be considered as in 
any way reflecting personally upon any south- 
ern man. We expect men coming her.— reared 
under the influences which surround them — 
impressed with the influences of the society in 
which they live — to bold views upon slavery dif- 



4 



6 



* 



ferine from ours. With that we find no fault; " support the institution of slavery; and you asked 
but we claim the risrht to hold the sentiments northern men to indorse that issue, made in our 
inculcated by the education of our childhood and State papers. And in the last Congress, you 
influences which have surrounded our lives, and ',', struck down— as I stated in the opening- of my 
that we shall be allowed to express them here or || remarks— a fair bargain, made by your fathers 
elsewhere with the same freedom as a southern ; with our fathers, and which had been religiously 



man expresses his, without being disfranchised 
therefor under this Government. 

Sir, what are the nothern aggressions that the 



observed by them for more than a third of a 
century. 
Mr. 'QUITMAN, (in his seat.) You robbed 



centleman sneaks of? Let me say to the gentle- e us of California. 

2j an ' Mr. GROW. The gentleman says that we 

Mr. QUITMAN, (interrupting.) I. desire to have robbed you of California. How is that? 
ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania this q'ues- California came to Congress and asked to be ad- 
tion: whether he himself was not elected as a mitted as a State of this Union. Your Govern- 
member of this House on the principle of hostility ment had neglected to give her a Government, and 
to the institutions of the southern States? she was forced to fall back upon the inherent 

Mr GROW. Sir, I hold no " hostility" to ' rights of men to take care of themselves, 
the institutions of the southern States, but shall j Mr. QUITMAN. Why not extend to Cah- 



resist the effort now making to change the con 
struction given to the Constitution by our fathers 
and the action of every branch of the Govern 
ment for over sixty years. If any one thin 



fornia the compromise line ? 

Mr. GROW. I am coming to that presently. 
The people of California— in the exercise of what 
is called popular sovereignty, and which was in 



more than another secured my return to this this case really so, because the people were forced 
House for the third time, by the unanimous vote [ by the neglect of the Government to r< ly entirely 
of my district, it was no doubt because I had i| on their inherent rights— formed a Government, 



stood" upon this floor, and resisted the repeal of 
the Missouri compromise. 

But, let me say to the gentleman from Missis- 
sippi, that political Abolitionism in the North — 
paradoxical as it may seem — is the child of the 



and excluded slavery. And what did you do ? 
The application of California for admission into 
the Union was resisted from the first; and on the 
Journal of the Senate of the United States is, to- 
day, a protest of ten southern Senators against 



"South. You nurtured it in infancy, when too the admission of California into the Union after 
feeble to stand alone; and you have made it the act of admission had passed. And what is 
strong in manhood by the injudicious and unjust I the reason these Senators gave for their opposition? 
legislation of this Hall. When the North peti- Because her constitution excluded slavery. 1 will 
tioned this Government to take steps in reference read the language of their protest 
to the institution of slavery, where it is conceded I Mr. HUMPHREY MARSHA 



to be solely under the jurisdiction of Congress, 
you passed' the twenty-first rule, denying a great 
constitutional right to freemen under this Govern- 
ment. That inaugurated political Abolitionism 
in the North; and "from that day to this the war- 
fare has been one of constitutional rights, not for 
the South alone, but for the North. In resisting 
the reopening of this agitation in the last Con- 
gress, by a repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
I took occasion to say that — 

*< Previous to that time[i. e. the passage of the twenty-first 
rule] Abolitionism was but a sentiment, arid a mere senti- 
ment is not a sufficient basis for a formidable pqlitieal organ- 
isation : but when great principles of constitutional risht are 
i i in the legislation of the country legislative acts 

ng with a strong and universal - ntiment may form 
enduring organizations. And the sentiment of the North, 
in reference to slavery, being dei p ami general; when you 



ALL. Will the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania allow me to make 
a suggestion here? 

Mr. GROW declined to yield the floor, and con- 
tinued: The reason alleged in this protest is, 
" that the bill gives the sanction of law, and thus 
imparts validity to the unauthorized action of a 
portion of the inhabitants of California, by which 
an odious discrimination is made against the property 
of the fifteen slaveholdin* Statcsofthe Union." That 
was the protest often southern Senators, that the 
admission of California, under her constitution, 
was a violation of the right of fifteen slaveholding 
States. 

Mr. QUITMAN. Let me tell the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania that no southern man has 
ever taken the ground of opposition to the admis- 
sion of California on the ground of her having 



force up legislative issues to combine with it, then be- 1 at j pt e d a constitution excluding slavery. 



comes a formidable element. 



Mr. GROW. I refer the gentleman to the 
language of the protest which I have just quoted. 






You then placed a censorship over the mails 

of this country like that placed by Louis Na- [Here, the hammer fell.] 
poleon to-day over the press of France; and in . . 

this country, where we claim that intelligence Mr. HARRIS said: I should not, sir, have 

should circulate as free as the air we breathe, you attempt d at this time to occupy the time of the 

empowered your postmasters to declare what is House for a moment, had it not been for the dec- 

ihcendia'ry, and to withhold such matter from the laration made by the gentleman from Pennsyl- 

white freemen of the South. You placed Upon vania, [Mr. Grow,] who dared any one to deny 
the records of your country, through your Sec- ]| what he had asserted. In the full confidence that 

retary of State, John C. Calhoun— a man whose in the denial of that assertion would be the truth 

memory I revere for his purity of character and I ventured a denial at the time. The statement 

integrity of purpoa — one of' the brightest and made by the gentleman from Pennsylvania was, 

purest intellects that the country evi r produced— that Mr. Clay was the supporter of the Missouri 

you put, I say, upon the records of the country, line of 1820, and he dared any one to deny that 

through him, a justification' of the annexation of such was the fact. ' ' 

Texas, on the ground that it would uphold and ,1 Mr. GROW. I do not think that I uared any 




;' 



one to deny it, but I ap^TT .led to the record for 
the truth of my assertion. ■ 

Mr. HARRIS. Well, whether the gentleman 
did or not, his words are taken by the reporters, 
and their record will show how tie- fact is. 

Mr. GROW. Very well; let that determine it. 

Mr. HARRIS. But 1 want to say a few words 
in conm ction with this question, and to dispose 
of the challenge which the gentleman has thrown 
out to the House, 1 state here in my place, that 
the remark which the gentleman made, that Mr. 
Clay favored tie- 1 territorial restriction, is not cor- 
rect". What does the record show ? In tie 
place I read from tin 1 17th volume olTViles's Re- 
gister, pages 174 and 175, as follows: 

" Wednesday, January 26, (1880.) Afti r other uusi 
the House unit into Committee of the Whole (Mr. Bald- 
wni in the chair) mi the Missouri bill. 

•'The proposition under consideration: was an amend- 
ment offered yesterdaj to the second section of thebill by 
Mr. Storrs, substantially t<> alter ill.' limits of the proposed 
State, so as to make the Missouri river the northern I 
ary thereof— [with the view of drawing a hue en which 
ein favor <>;'. and those opposed to, the slave restriction 
might compromise their views.] » 

•• .Mr. Si s rose and withdrew the amendment lie of- 
fered yesterday, and in lieu then of submit! id the following : 
••./ furtfter, and it is her* '; i ■<■■ ted, That for- 

ever hi rentier neither slavery nor involuntary servitude (ex- 
for the punishment of crimes tor which the party shall 
have been duly convicted) shall exist in the territory of the 

lying north of the thirty eigltth deg of north 

latitude, at d west pfthe Mississippi rivi r, and of the bound- 

tttis tut: Pro- 
vider, in escaping into 9aid Territory from 
n service is lawfully claimed in anyof.the 
States, such fugitive ma> be lawfully reclaimed and coh- 
umg to the laws of the United States in sueh 
ease made ami provided, to the person claiming his or her 
tabor as aforesaid. 

•■ i "i :,.i- motion a debate ensued of a desultory charac- 
ter. Messrs. Randolph, Lowndes, Mercer, Brush, Smith 
of Marylai A, Stbfrs, and Clay, successively followed each 
other iii debate." 

Kbw, Bdtr. Clerk, here is the only meager ac- 
count we find of the character of that debate; but 
the question here naturally arises upon which 
side of that proposition was Mr. Clay found. 
From t'i • position which Mr. Clay subsequently 
took in February, in opposition to restrictions upon 
the State, when In-, according to tin- declaration 
of the National Intelligencer of this city,rose and 
spoke for four hours in opposition, the House 
bi ing in the Commits e of the Whole, and when 

the _ if debate was allowed, is it 

probable that he would have omitted to state his 
view - this question of u rxitorial re- 

striction? No "tie can suppose that for a moment; 
and the question is, what position did he take 
upon thai question: The |entleman from Ken- 
tucky, [Mr. Humphrey Marshall,] who has 
just taken his seat, has stated certain matters 
which maybe adduced collaterally to show what 
positioiijie took upon that occasion. Hut there 
js 1 ctti r proof than that— and 1 take pleasure in 
bringing it to the notice of the House, and I wish 
it to go carefully upon the records of the House, 
as a declaration which I make by authority. 
There is nowa gentleman living is this city, ven- 
erable in years, having been near fifty years in 
the service of his country. Si rving her faithfully, 
wine I, and never 

•will be — who was present and heard Mr. Clay 
upon both of these occasions, win a he di bated 
the resolution of Mr. Storrs and the resolution 
upon State restriction. He took notes of 



speeches, as he tells me, and he authorizes me to 
say that Mr. Clay opposed all restrictions either 
upon territory or State. [" Who is it?"] Gen- 
eral Jesup, whose authority no man will ques- 
tion, lb: says he heard Mr. Clay upon this floor 
upon both of those occasions, and took notes of 
his remarks. He has them now, and he proposes 
to give 'bent to tin 1 public at a proper time. He 
says Mr. Clay opposed restriction upon both 
branches of this subject, and that he was opposed 
to till restriction. He also details the hue of 
argument pursued upon those occasions. 

Hut upon other facts of individual recollection, 
from other notes and memoranda taken at the 
time, there can be no doubt as to Mr. Clay \s po l- 
tion upon that question; and it was to correct that 
misrepresentation of the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania, and to place the correction before the 
country, that 1 rose, and for nothing more; and 
having made the statements 1 hare, in connec- 
tion with the remarks of those gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, I have nothing more to say. 

Mr. GROW. I shall say but a few words in 
reply to the gentleman from Illinois. The effort 
which he has made to change the record of the 
country by citing officers of the Army, or any 
living witness, will not, I trust, be admitti d here, 
or in the country, against the declarations of the 
living man, made in the Senate of the United 
States in hifl own vindication. 

That Mr. Clay was opposed to any restriction 
on the State of Missouri there is no question. 
He resisted it from first to last. That is not the 
question in controversy. The question is, whe- 
ther he was in favor of the adoption of the line 
36° 30', north of which slavery should be for- 
ever prohibited; and 1 will read an extract from 
his own remarks, where lie himself, on the sixth 
of February, 1850, gives the history <•!' the whole 
transaction. In that history he clears up the 
misapprehension which existed in the country 
that In' was the originator of that proposition. 
That fact lie denied. In that speech he reviewed 
the controversy, stating his conm ction with it. 
I did not claim that In- was in favor of a restriction 
on the State, but that lie was in favor of the line 
.^SO', and that a majority of southern men 
supported it. And what is the record? Mr. Clay 
says: 

••.Mr. Thomas, acting in every instance, presented the 
proposition of 35° 30', and it was finally agreed to. ButI 
take the occasion to say. that among those who agreed to 
that line, were a majority of southern member*." 

"My friend from Alabama in tin- Senate, [Mr. Kins.] 
.Mr. Pinckney, from .Man land, and a majorit) of the south- 
ern members in 1 1 1 i — body, voted in favor <>f the line of :>tj 
of the members m the other Hi use, I 
the head of whom was .Mr. Lowndes himself, voted abo 
tor thai line. / it ,i r no do 

•■ But, as I was sh„;ik>-r <>: the [louse, and as the Journal 
d ies ii it -hew which way the Speaker votes, evj>t in the 
' ' a tie. I am net aide to tell with certainty how [ 
actually did vote ; hut / have no earthly doulit that I ro/crf, 
in c n.nnon with »ii/ other southern friends, for the adoption 
of the line 36 ■ 

Mr. Clay's own declaration, made by himself! 

And the summoning of living witnesses to con- 

cl him raises a question, not between me and 

the witnesses WfiOni V"U sntimii ni . bul a ion stion 

between thi i in of your own Clay and 

that of your witnesses. Tie you. 

1 li ave tiie r.cord, then, with the living wit- 
en you summon to impeach the decla- 
ration of your own immortal statesman. Eut, 



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sir, from the archives of your country comes the i 
declaration of one of the living actors of the times, 
that the South regarded the adoption of that 
line of 36° 30' as a triumph. Charles Pinckney 
wrote from this Capitol at midnight— for it seems 
that all of these slavery laws must be passed in | 
the darkness of the night; twelve o'clock seems 
to be the fitting hour for passing all compromises 
in regard to slavery, and for repealing them—at 
least such is the history of the country— Mr. 
Pinckney, writing from this Hall at the dead 
hour of the night, in 1820, says: 

"Dear Sir : I hasten to inform you that this moment we 
have carried the question to admit Missouri and alt Louis- 
ana to the southward of 36° 30', free of the restnetidn of 
Blavery and nve the Southincr short time an addftmiot 
six and ne haps eisM members to the Senate of the United 
Stales, it is considered here by the slaveholding States as a 

GREAT TRIUMPH." 

It was considered by the South at the time as 
a great triumph. And yet men stand here and 
tell us that it was forced upon them by the North. 
In the Senate of the United States, on the en- 
grossment and passage of the bill, twenty south- 
ern Senators voted for it— two only against it. 

But four northern Senators voted for that line— 
eighteen against it. But two southern Senators 
voted against it— twenty for it. Among the latter 
were both Senators from Virginia, Louisiana, 
Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, and Delaware, with Mr ; 
Stokes, of North Carolina, and Mr. Gilhard,of 
South Carolina— leaving two against it. 

Now there is another part of this letter of Mr. 
Pinckney's, which is testimony cotemporaneous 
with the passage of that compromise which has 
been so ruthlessly stricken down: 

" To the north of 35° 30' there is to be, by the present law, 
restriction, which, von will see by the votes, I voted against. 
Bvt it is at present of no moment. It is a vast tract, unin- 
habited onlv by savages and wild beasts, in which not a foot 
of the ftidian claim to soil is extinguished, and in which, 
according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened 
for a great length of time." 




rj the 

ques- 
She 

on of 
cc to 
such 



But when a land office comes to be opened, you 
come hero and strike down this restriction— strike 
down everything which the North thought she 
had secured by that arrangement. 

The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Humphrey 
Marshall] said, in the way of interrogatory, 
that I would not agree to extend the Missouri 
compromise line to the Pacific. That is true. 
He undertook to say, however, that the North 
had not been faithful to the compromise of 1820. 
Sir, what was the Missouri restriction applied to ? 
To the territory purchased of France — to thai 
alone, and nothing else. It was not applied to 
any other territory, for there was no other to 
apply it to. Then, has it not been adhered to 
by the North in its application to the territory 
to which it was applied ? Was it not put on the 
statute-book on the 6th of March, 1820; and did 
it not continue a valid enactment, without change 
or alteration, till the passage of the Nebraska lull 
by the last Congress? How then was it aban- 
doned? Gentlemen complain that when Missouri 
asked to be admitted into the Union, the North 
objected ti> heradmission. 



A Me 
oppositi 
| _ Mr. G 
j tion. 1 
' had pass 
I free blac 
I her admi„. 

a restriction, and not that she tolerated slavery. 
It was in that compromise that Mr. Clay figured 
as the originator. He brought in a proposition 
to harmonize that question, and it passed. But 
there was no question raised, at that time, about 
the line of 36° 30', nor at any other time, so far 
as the Louisiana purchase was concerned, the 
only territory to which that arrangement applied. 
But when the Government acquired new terri- 
tory, to which we were asked to apply that line, 
we said "no." And why? Because, while you 
would hem us in, in our territorial expansion, 
by this line on the south and the British posses- 
sions on the north, you would be left almost in- 
definite expansion on the south. Would it then 
have hfcn fair for the North to have hemmed 
herself in forever upon twelve and a half degrees 
of latitude, over which to carry free labor and 
free institutions; while leaving almost indefinite; 
expansion to the institutions of slavery ? Besides, 
sir, we had acquired free territory— territory in 
which slavery was abolished by the laws of Mex- 
ico—and we were asked to make it, by act of 
Congress, slave territory. To such a proposition 
I answer the gentleman, in the language of Ken- 
tucky's own illustrious statesman, " I never will 
vote, and no earthly power will ever make me 
vote, to spread slavery over territory where it 
does not exist." That was the declaration of 
your own Clay, made on the 6th of March, 1850. 
It was almost his dying declaration, and it will 
live among the proudest legacies that he has be- 
queathed to after times. Sir, I stand with him 
in declaring that by no act of mine shall slavery 
ever be carried into any territory from which it 
is excluded by positive law. 

Mr. HUMPHREY MARSHALL. The gen- 
tleman from Pennsylvania will allow me to say, 
that there is not a southern Representative on 
tHs floor who will vote to spread shivery over 
territory where it does not now exist. 

Mr. GROW. But the proposition to extend 
the Missouri compromise line through the acqui- 
sition of Mexican territory was in fact the same 
thing. It was saying, by legislative act of this 
Republic, that slavery might exist in that Territo- 
ry , notwithstanding the lawsofMexicb prohibited 
it. We wen' asked to strike off all restrictions 
by a positive legislative act. If slavery had then 
gone into that Territory, it would have been the 
act of this Government, as in the case of Kansas 
now. If slavery plant itself there, who is re- 
sponsible for it? The men who struck down that 
restriction; for, with the Missouri compromise in 
force, slavery could never have gone there. If 
i then it goes there during its territorial existence, 
! while under the jurisdiction of Congress, it is 
just the same in effect as if carried there by your 
votes, for you permit to be done what you have 
] the power to prevent. 



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